“It is. We always told you the right date, just not the right location.”
There was a collective sigh around the table. The wrong date would’ve thrown a monkey wrench into my brothers’ and my plans.
“Anyway, back to my original question. What was with you giving me crap for our quickie wedding when you’d done it yourselves?”
“Tyler, watch your language at the dinner table,” my mother scolded.
“Apologies.”
“And please, I didn’t give you half the sh—” My father paused, looking toward my mother who glared at him, eyebrow raised. “… difficulty my father gave me. Not that it made a difference either way,” he added coolly.
We’d always known that my father hadn’t had a great relationship with his own father. My grandfather had passed before I was born, so I never met the man, but from the little I did know about him, I wasn’t a fan. However, I do know that some things he’d taught my father had stuck with him until this day. He’d even passed some of those lessons on to us.
“They really didn’t give us a hard time, babe,” my wife interjected. “Resha was more upset than your parents when she found out we’d gotten married.”
I glanced down, grinning at Destiny. Her cousin and best friend, Resha, had indeed been pissed off when she found out Destiny and I had married, just the two of us, on a yacht in the Bahamas.
“I can’t believe you kept that secret from us all of these years,” Joshua added, the rest of the family nodding their heads in agreement.
“Some things aren’t your business,” my father stated with a shrug.
“Your wedding day isn’t one of those things, Father,” Aaron added, surprising most of us.
He of all people was one to talk about secrets. The man had had an ongoing relationship with his wife that produced two children long before any of us knew about it. Granted, he didn’t even know about the children until they were five years old, but still.
“We’re not the only one with secrets.” My father’s eyes narrowed on Aaron and then on the rest of us. “What happens in your relationship is best left between you and your spouse. Remember that, boys. It’s okay to share some things with the outside world, but at the end of the day, remember who it is you come home to at night. Who you curl up next to in the bed before you go to sleep, and who you open your eyes to every morning. Your loyalty, first and foremost, is to your wife. A man who can’t be faithful to his family is a man who can’t be trusted, period, point blank.”
We were all silent for a good thirty seconds, ingesting and digesting my father’s words. I couldn’t see them, because I was too busy looking at my own wife, but I was certain my three brothers were also looking at their wives, delivering silent promises with their gazes that lined up with my father’s words, as I was.
An hour and a half later, I found myself trailing behind my wife, watching the sway of her ass in the knee-length, sleeveless, floral dress she wore, as she strolled down the hall, carrying Travis, our youngest triplet, in her arms. I firmly held Annalise and Tristan at either one of my sides.
We both worked to change the children’s diapers, dress them in their pajamas for the evening and warm their bottles to give them before putting them down to sleep. With three babies, all eight months old, it was a task to get everyone to bed on time but it was one we were getting better at.
“Stop!” Destiny, whisper yelled, swatting at my hand after I’d just pinched her ass on the way out of our children’s bedroom. We kept them all in the same room, for now, since the room was directly across the hall from our bedroom.
I frowned and then growled, grabbing the slip of a woman I’d married, pulling her soft body to my hard frame.
Giggling, she wrapped her arms around my neck. “You’re incorrigible.”
I grinned. “You know I love it when you use big words like that.” I dipped my head, biting her chin before licking her neck. I lifted my head with her still in my arms. “We should have another baby.”
Destiny sucked her teeth and pushed from my embrace, turning her back on me to head into our bedroom. I was expecting that exact response.
“Tyler Townsend, are you out of your mind?” she began as I entered the bedroom behind her.
I pulled open the top drawer of the mirrored nightstand that sat next to my side of the bed, reaching for a remote, before plopping down on the bed.
“Yup. Any other questions?” I pressed the power button on the remote, and the familiar noise of the retractable mirror that was above our bed sounded as it began to emerge from it concealment.
“Don’t you dare,” Destiny warned but she was much too late.
My gaze trailed down the length of her five-foot-two-inch frame. I licked my lips as the sight of the smooth, chestnut skin of her legs, anticipating having those legs locked around my waist.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“Let me get you dirty first,” I growled, moving so quickly from my position on the bed to the other side of the room, she startled when I grabbed her from behind, spinning her around to face me.
My hand went to her left shoulder, slowly guiding the material of sleeveless dress down her arm along with the strap of her bra.
